AH Challenge: Earliest Possible Space Travel

BlackMage

This is for a story that I'll be writing after Advance Australia, which means I'll start writing in about 2011.

Anyway, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to determine the earliest possible time that Earth, if necessary with all its resources and technologies combined in a common goal (let's say an alien invasion or asteroid threat), could have launched an object into space.

Bonus points if the object is a man or men. More bonus points if they can return alive. MORE bonus points if it's before 1900.

Please help!
 

Midgard

BlackMage said:
This is for a story that I'll be writing after Advance Australia, which means I'll start writing in about 2011.

Anyway, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to determine the earliest possible time that Earth, if necessary with all its resources and technologies combined in a common goal (let's say an alien invasion or asteroid threat), could have launched an object into space.

Bonus points if the object is a man or men. More bonus points if they can return alive. MORE bonus points if it's before 1900.

Please help!
Click to expand...

What's the earliest allowed POD? Because with ancient PODs, it is possible pretty darn early...
 

Tielhard

Banned
Well if Tsiolkovski's results come to greater prominence then some time around 1940 would be viable although there would be the small matter of a world war to deal with.

Pre Tsiolkovski we need someone else to develop the rocket equations. Maybe someone wants to disprove Verne's space gun? Lots of people could do it. No idea who would but 1865 would then be the earliest date to think about a project and most of the technologies would be available by 1900.
 

Mike Stearns

Assuming that World War II happens as in OTL and assuming that Von Braun is able to convince the Americans that the Soviets are also working on missile technology, then its possible for the United States to put up a satillite by the early 50s and a man by the mid 50s. If there's no World War, then the space age as we know it begins sometime in the 40s.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
How about...the Nazis decide to proceed with the Sanger-designed Amerika Bomber, and the US ends up diverting it's Manhattan Project resources to Robert Goddard and a rocket program. In mid-1944, the first man in space is a Luftwaffe Oberlieutnant, followed minutes later by an Air Force Captain launched from White Sands.
 

Mike Stearns

MacCaulay said:
How about...the Nazis decide to proceed with the Sanger-designed Amerika Bomber, and the US ends up diverting it's Manhattan Project resources to Robert Goddard and a rocket program. In mid-1944, the first man in space is a Luftwaffe Oberlieutnant, followed minutes later by an Air Force Captain launched from White Sands.
Click to expand...

Interesting idea, although I don't think that the Americans would have been able to put a man in space during the war. Goddard's designs weren't adavanced enough for that. Although I could see him developing a long range rocket that could have been based in England and used to bomb Berlin.

Also according to wiki, the Silverbird design for the Amerika Bomber was flawed and had it actually been built and flown, would have burned up in the atmosphere Oops. :p
 

Keenir

Banned
BlackMage said:
This is for a story that I'll be writing after Advance Australia, which means I'll start writing in about 2011.

Anyway, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to determine the earliest possible time that Earth, if necessary with all its resources and technologies combined in a common goal (let's say an alien invasion or asteroid threat), could have launched an object into space.

Bonus points if the object is a man or men. More bonus points if they can return alive. MORE bonus points if it's before 1900.

Please help!
Click to expand...

well, around the time that Leonardo da Vinci was playing with planes, an inventor in Istanbul was utilizing rockets. he flew from the Galata Tower, and survived (he did it again later on)

does that count?
 

Ward

so what are you talking about as space Travel .
I can see the US building a space station in space in the mid 70's we had the tech to do it then and then building lage space ships to fly to the moon and mar's in the 80's with colonies being set up on them . and by the 1990's man is heading out futher in to space .
 

orbeyonde

One way to look at it is what if the rennaisance occured about 500 years earlier. If the Dark ages lasted only 500 years instead of 1000, maybe science would have begun to bloom earlier thus possbily leading to a man in space 500 years earlier in our timeline.

I know of all the arguments that the dark ages werent really dark and that technology continued to flourish during that time, but yet the possiblity of a more liberal and less chruch controlled europe could have led to much greater scientific advances.


Imagine if you will:
Galileo becomes the father of modern rocketry.
Davinci is the first astronaut
etc.
 

David bar Elias

How about we go really far back for a POD.

74,000 years ago, the Toba supervolcano erupted in what is today Indonesia. Humanity almost went extinct from the disaster. The eruption created a population bottleneck, which is the reason that humanity today has so little genetic variety.

So whatever reason (the actuall POD can be millions of years ago when the cauldera doesn't form), Toba never happens. Humanity is not confronted with a disaster of epic proportions. This leads to modern-man spreading across the planet more quickly.

Actual changes are hard to notice, other than more genetic variety and a slightly higher uptick in technology. With a far larger population base, human civilizations become longer-lasting and more stable, leading to further advances in science and technology. The end result is that by the 1500s, humanity is taking its first step to the stars......

That's just my idea. Feel free to use it, although I'm sure that whatever you choose will make for a great story......:cool:
 

Nik

Two options...

Victorians take their Army & Naval 'breeches buoy' solid-fuel rockets to next natural step and up-size them ??

Don't forget that 'flash steam' and electric (!!) nearly trumped IC engines...

That would give sub-orbital, then orbital ~~ 1900.

=========

Alternatively, British Interplanetary Society planned a viable Moon mission 1937~~'38, again using solid-fuel rockets. They were unaware of liquid-fueled engines' progress, thought development times too long. IIRC, these plans were promptly updated upon sight of V2 debris.

Check it out: Okay, they were limited to sextant, slide-rules & log-tables, but parallels with Apollo project are most striking...
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
If you want a post-WW2 POD, then Chris came up with a rather interesting idea in 'War after Roswell' for a scenario in which everyone throws absolutely everything into space programmes after 1947... (The actual event is ASB though)

Perhaps an earlier interest in rocketry? I know in Tony Jones' Monarchy World he had the British and others put more interest into rocketry after Tippoo Sultan and Congreve...
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Also, the Americans (bizarrely) accidentally created an undersea launched rocket missile during the ACW (it was supposed to be a torpedo, staying underwater the whole way, and thus technically 'failed' :D ) Perhaps that sparks more interest?
 

SkyEmperor

America, 1930's, more effort is put into rocketry, things start going really well. During world war II, the British get flogged during the battle of Britain. The Lufwaffe has complete air superiority in Europe. The US develops and A-bomb, but has no way to deliver it to Germany. Finally, we decide to send the bomb up into orbit from New Mexico, and then bring it down out of orbit on top of Berlin.

Even cooler, is some British Imperialists trying to colonise space. It would take some very big tech boosts, but it would all be worth it if the moon was a crown colony.
 

DuQuense

Well whe have the First man on the moon Movie

The UN rocket lands, the US, English, French & Russian get out,
go Boucing around the Moon
Go around the large Rock and see a British Flag, with a note.

"I Edward Carvor, do hereby claim the Moon in the name of Queen Victoria."

Then there is the Story of the men exploring the moon and coming on a cavern with boot prints in it, and a Picture from De Vinci.

But for serious OTL tech, sometime just after WW2, if there had been a political reason to spend the nessacary funds
 

fortyseven

Mid-19th century, meteorite(s) crash into St Paul's Cathedral, British Houses of Parliament, or something else important and this stimulates astronomy and space exploration (as well as attendant fields such as materials science and propulsion technologies)

The British achieve sub-orbital flight in the the early 1890s, orbital flight mid/late 1890s, man on the moon around 1905.
 

bigmanhelper

Mike Stearns said:
Interesting idea, although I don't think that the Americans would have been able to put a man in space during the war. Goddard's designs weren't adavanced enough for that. Although I could see him developing a long range rocket that could have been based in England and used to bomb Berlin.

Also according to wiki, the Silverbird design for the Amerika Bomber was flawed and had it actually been built and flown, would have burned up in the atmosphere Oops. :p
Click to expand...
I saw the wiki article. It said that this flaw could have been fixed by strengthening the heat shield, but at the cost of reducing the payload capacity. I recently read a story based on this idea. It's called "V-S Day" by Allen Steele. In the story, agents for Great Britain learn about Sanger's project and get copies of his plans to Britain and the U.S.A. DR puts Goddard in charge of developing an American counterpart. Since the Nazis are more concerned with bombing New York City than saving the pilot, missing the design flaw would be understandable. In Goddard's case, his relentless focus on practical problems means he notices the flaw and makes the necessary fix. Since the U.S. rocketplane (called the Lucky Lindy) is only concerned with destroying the German Silbervogel, she doesn't need as large a payload.
 
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